Apply for your Intellectual Property alpha assessment
Report for the Apply for your Intellectual Property alpha assessment on 28 June 2022
Service Standard assessment report
Apply for your Intellectual Property
| From: | Central Digital & Data Office (CDDO) |
| Assessment date: | 28/06/2022 |
| Stage: | Alpha |
| Result: | Met |
| Service provider: | Intellectual Property Office |
Service description
“Secure IP” is a digital service that allows users to apply to the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) for an intellectual property right (or to “secure their IP”).
Secure IP focuses on the journey to apply for a patent, with reference to the user needs for trade marks and designs to ensure the journey will work for them.
The service also includes the internal workflow for staff working within IPO, who receive and assess the application.
Secure IP is one part of a larger transformation programme for IPO that covers related services, including:
- Managing your intellectual property through an account–“Manage IP”
- Challenging a right or an examiner decision – “Challenge IP
- Register and research intellectual property–“Research IP”
The problems the services aim to solve include:
- Rights sitting across multiple services
- Conflicting user needs
- Time consuming processes and disconnected tools
- Poor quality applications
Service users
This service has two main user groups:
- external users composed of citizens, businesses, and intermediaries in the UK and overseas, who apply for intellectual property rights
- internal users including IPO staff who process the Rights applications
1. Understand users and their needs
Decision
The service met point 1 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that the team:
- used a good mix of research methods using sufficient samples across a range of users
- have a clear and detailed view of their users, with nine personas across three groups. They have impressive user research around assisted digital where users of offline channels is low
- use solid processes to plan, execute and learn from research in design iterations, keeping an impressive log of the extent needs are met. These also tie to service objectives
- have a clear view on user pain points
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider the persona approach. Nine detailed personas may be too many to maintain a useful detail. Naming the personas, too, may hinder internal adoption
2. Solve a whole problem for users
Decision
The service met point 2 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the scope of this service has been clearly defined in relation to its sister service “Manage IP” and the other services which make up this suite of services. The service team could clearly show how the service joined up with the other services to solve users’ problems
- the team have worked hard to ensure that users can reuse previously entered data if using the service multiple times
- significant work has been done on the internal service, specifically around the internal users’ business processes and workflows. This work should lead to more efficiencies and satisfaction for these busy, time-poor users
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure they share new or extended components such as the search functionality with GDS and the wider gov design community. This will help enable them to provide the most useful and usable tool for their users
- continue to work closely with the Dynamics development team to ensure the most usable internal service possible. The team could consider their use of iconography without supporting content, select “dropdowns”, and modal warnings for alerts and information tooltips and investigate whether there are compatible alternatives to be found within the GOV.UK design system
3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels
Decision
The service met point 3 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that the team:
- collaborated regularly with other aspects of the services to ensure the users’ experience is consistent across the whole service
- identified a need for “pre-apply” guidance at the front of the service and have spent time refining the file upload functionality so that it works in an optimal way for both the internal and external users
- engaged with internal users to identify their pain points and understand how they can help them by designing a service which is simpler and easier to use for external users
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure that the common language between internal and external services work is extended into both the “pre-apply” guidance and Secure IP, utilising dedicated content designers. This could help both user types to understand each other better
- show more examples of ‘intersecting’ user journeys between ‘sister’ services (manage, challenge and ‘research’)
4. Make the service simple to use
Decision
The service met point 4 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the public-facing “Secure IP” service utilises GOV.UK components and patterns, such as the file upload component and the Task list pattern. The research and iteration cycles show the team’s commitment to providing a simple solution to a complex problem
- the journey from search engines, into gov.uk and onward to the service works well and users don’t appear to have any issues accessing the service
- the team were able to demonstrate how they have iterated and improved the content used in the service and that these designs had been validated with user research. It’s great to see that content design is planned to be integrated more heavily into the service team
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure that more complex interactions and components, such as the search functionality, work for all users and don’t cause issues where a simple solution would work as well or better for less frequent users
- continue to investigate and accommodate all unhappy paths, and ensure onward steps and mitigation are handled by content and established GOV.UK error handling as they appear to be doing already
- ensure some or all of the public-facing “Secure IP” service can be accessed on any device, maximising usage and potentially making it simpler to use. Designing in the GOV.UK prototype kit will enable research in this area and therefore the overall usability of all facets of the service
5. Make sure everyone can use the service
Decision
The service met point 5 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that the team:
- researched with users with accessibility needs and are iterating based on those findings
- worked with the Dynamics development team to ensure that the solution will be able to be used by screen readers and that keyboard shortcuts can be utilised
- demonstrated a solid, ongoing plan to continue researching with users to uncover accessibility needs and any potential issues in both sides of the service
What the team needs to explore
As alpha was primarily developed using Adobe, before their next assessment the team needs to:
- ensure that future research can be done effectively if users have access needs Using the GOV.UK prototype kit - and also researching with a built solution - could help to provide this as Adobe XD can simulate interactions but has usability limitations
- consider alternatives to the timeline PDFs offered when explaining which application should be used. More accessible solutions are available, such as HTML, and the use of colour to differentiate between user types may not be sufficient for all users to easily understand
- continue to seek users of the service with access needs and low digital confidence to research with. This will provide the team with more robust insight that is context specific
6. Have a multidisciplinary team
Decision
The service met point 6 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that the team:
- secured its members throughout phases of development
- shared resources between all the sister services
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- look at reducing dependency on external suppliers or contractors
- ensure knowledge transfer from suppliers or contractors to permanent staff
7. Use agile ways of working
Decision
The service met point 7 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that the team:
- exemplified robust understanding and usage of agile ways of working
- regularly included stakeholders to participate in user research
8. Iterate and improve frequently
Decision
The service met point 8 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that the team iterated:
- a variety of user journeys, multiple times due to their decision to develop the alpha using high-fidelity tools
- their ways of working to accommodate the needs of the team and the programme
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- thoroughly test and iterate:
- user journeys between the ‘sister’ services (manage, challenge, research) to ensure continuity and completion of tasks
- technical dependencies to ensure the user facing journeys, features and integrations of various components are viable, safe and resilient
9. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy
Decision
The service met point 9 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the service team have Security Architects embedded within the team
- designs are reviewed/validated by Technical Authorities within IPO
- security testing has been considered for beta
- impacts on privacy have been considered
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider reaching out to other departments using common components to understand common issues with tools in use
- ensure impacts of fraud are included in threat modelling
10. Define what success looks like and publish performance data
Decision
The service met point 10 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- the team has thoroughly considered management information, KPIs and some transactional data
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure chosen KPIs and MI deliver valuable insights
- further define the benefits of the service, for example, what are the financial benefits to their users, how much time is saved
11. Choose the right tools and technology
Decision
The service met point 11 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- decision making for tools had considered other options with reviews undertaken by governance boards within IPO
- Gov.uk Notify and Pay are used within the design
- use of blue/green deployments will support rapid deployment
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- ensure legacy service dependencies are managed throughout the expected life cycle of the service
12. Make new source code open
Decision
The service met point 12 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- consideration has been given to what components can be open sourced
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- provide links to open source repositories used within the service
13. Use and contribute to open standards, common components and patterns
Decision
The service met point 13 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- components are shared across the wider IPO transformation programmes
- consideration had been given to integrations with World IPO and European IPO
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider the use of standard government technology components where possible
14. Operate a reliable service
Decision
The service met point 14 of the Standard.
What the team has done well
The panel was impressed that:
- consideration had been given to scaling of the service during periods of high load
- consideration had been given to the impact of performance on legacy systems
- deployment model was described as using blue/green environments
- automated load testing will take place
- the creation of environments is automated
What the team needs to explore
Before their next assessment, the team needs to:
- consider how RPO and RTO objectives for service recovery will be met
- ensure knowledge transfer from managed services takes place
- continue to develop runbooks for incidents/issues
- ensure scale up and out of solution also scales down and in when loads reduce